Two-part cultural revolution

In the same way that The Bright Young Things and their hangers-on – literati, glitterati and English aristocrats of the late 19th and early 20th centuries – typified and promoted the first spurt of the cocktail-culture revolution, it was The Lost Generation (the likes of American authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein) who regularly fostered and promoted the second spurt, and particularly during the flamboyant 1920s. (Not ironically, both Stein and Hemingway are variously credited with coining the phrase, the Lost Generation). What The Bright Young Things and The Lost Generation had in common was an intellectual inquisitiveness and a non-conformity bordering on rebelliousness – by them, everything that could be questioned was questioned. Thus, cocktails and the cocktail-bar environment allowed these free spirits of the age to thrive. Furthermore, those creating and making the drinks with such flair and showmanship, were similarly nonconformist and unconventional, further ensuring the culture’s bohemian and free-wheeling direction.